Featured planetary moon
Deimos
Mars’s smaller outer moon, distant and restrained.
Deimos follows a wider and slower orbit than Phobos. Its low gravity and softened surface appearance contrast with the sharper, more dramatic profile of its inner sibling.
- Orbit representation
- Representative mean elements
- Surface
- derived map
Reference measurements
The numbers that shape this world
- Mean radius
- 6.2 km
- Mean orbital distance
- 23,457 kmSemi-major axis around the parent body.
- Orbital period
- 1.263 days
- Eccentricity
- 0
- Inclination
- 1.8°Local Laplace plane from the JPL pole
- Rotation
- Tidally locked
World portrait
The quieter Martian companion
The contrast between the two Martian moons is primarily one of scale and orbit: Deimos is smaller, farther out and slower across the sky.
System geometry
Deimos in motion around Mars
Deimos travels at a mean orbital distance of 23,457 km and completes a circuit in 1.263 days. Its eccentricity of 0 and 1.8° inclination are read against Local Laplace plane from the JPL pole. Synchronous rotation keeps the same hemisphere broadly oriented toward the parent body.
Representation notes
What Explore is showing
JPL fitted mean elements describe general orbit shape and orientation; they are not an accurate ephemeris.
Reviewed official global map prepared as a 1K display texture. Small no-data seams were cleaned without inventing large-scale landmarks; final seam, pole and lighting review remains device-dependent.
Provenance